Weird News: This Sets a Whole New Meaning of 'Toeing the Line'

This has to be the strangest Father's Day gift ever. 

Kevin Ewing, of Tacoma, Washington, was enjoying a leisurely stroll along the beach with his family on Father's Day, when he spotted a neatly gift-wrapped package in the sand. It being Father's Day and all, he opened it, and inside? A feather, burnt grass, sage, lavender, some tobacco, and a rag containing a severed human toe.

The item was carefully wrapped like a celebratory gift and resting near the park's property line, as reported by Federal Way Mirror.

Thinking it might be a prayer box or a mysterious message washed ashore, curiosity got the better of him - and he carefully opened the package.

But as he peeled back the cloth concealing the contents, he came face-to-face with a mutilated, decomposing human toe.

'At first I was very shocked, and it took me a few minutes to kind of be like, "is this what I think it is?"' Ewing told the outlet. 'Then once it dawned on me that that's what it was, I set everything down.'

'You know, it's just very creepy,' he added to KIRO News. 'It's like something you would see in a horror movie.'

Creepy just doesn't seem to cover this one. Alarming, maybe; morbid, certainly. Were it wartime, one might wonder if it was part of an unfortunate sailor whose ship was hit by a toe-pedo, but that surely isn't the case here. And it seems the toe-pagraphy of the beach didn't offer any clues.

Washington State Patrol (WSP) quickly arrived on the scene and launched an investigation into the disturbing discovery. 

According to WSP Trooper Rick Johnson, an alert was sent to all law enforcement agencies to cross-reference any open cases that might be connected, as reported by the Federal Way Mirror.

The toe was turned over to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office for DNA testing and identification. 

In an incident report obtained by the outlet, the toe - which was found to be accompanied by another piece of organic matter - was believed to be about the size of an adult male's.

I won't speculate on what the other "piece of organic matter" might be. Anything I could offer would be a guess, and I'm really trying to put my best foot forward here. Although, we may know one thing. Rumor has it that the toe and other package contents were taken away in - of course - a toe truck.

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It's hard to fathom this as a random crime. This toe, along with the "organic matter" (ew) and the other odds and ends in that package, seems to be some almost ritualized thing, especially with the tobacco and fragrant herbs included in the package. With only one toe found, however irregular, we can at least hope that this isn't the remains of a homicide; one can live without a toe better than some of the other mechanics of nature. But, yes, this is a strange one. The investigation is still ongoing, and for the time everything is toe-p secret. One thing we can say for sure about whoever lost that toe: He's certainly stumped.

This prompts me to ask: What did the hat say to the shoe?

You wait here, I'll go on a head.

I'll show myself out.

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